adamo68 wrote:Oh when your merc does better than my actual character. Granted I've only been playing for 3 weeks now so I am very noob.

Don't worry. In this sense he's cheating. He uses Firedance (sorc fire tree) skill to boost the procs. I don't know for sure how much +% to elemental damages he has, but i guess it's about 200% at least.

I doubt that the merc alone without any boost from the character itself would be able to kill dcows that easily.

And btw Solfege. How much defense does your sorc have? She rarely ever gets hit :O

IDK if I'd call it "cheating," but she is certainly getting a bit of help. She gets a 128% boost to Elemental damage from Firedance, a +5 skill boost from Familiars and +25% DR from Ice Elementals (the added defence boost is meaningless). That's why I included these factors in the Stats breakdown lists for each setup, just in case anyone was curious about what kind of difference these buffs made.

In D-Cows, the buffs don't make much difference. Firedance adds roughly 1k extra damage to element-based procs, on average (depending on the proc), and she's good at staying out of melee range, so the %DR isn't much of a factor. But in other places such as Fauzt, stuff like %DR helps quite a bit.

As for my Sorc, she has about 800k def and about 65% ctb with that setup, so that's why she doesn't get hit/take damage often. Still could be improved, tho.

Well, maybe "cheating" was the wrong word. What I was trying to say is he buffed the merc a lot. Ice elementals are okay for testing purposes, since they basically only block damage as a meatshield and add the the defensive aspect of the merc. But they don't add anything to the damage/offensive aspect of the merc, which is what you're testing if I understand you correctly. I don't know if those 128% more elemental damage really make no difference as you say. Even on my totemancer I always had to buff myself with burning veil first because it simply added a lot to clearspeed. Despite the fact that I already had about +200% elemental damage without BV and BV added "only" another 140% (Numbers may vary but you get what I mean. If your merc has no additional spell damage the 128% from firedance should make a huge difference considering that the spell damage on my nec made a huge difference as well despite me having +% spell damage from other sources already).

I simply don't know if you can really call it a test-run if you buff your merc first with skills that not every character has available. That way you falsify the results in a positive way. I'd love to see how the merc can do without firedance and familiars but I'd understand if you don't want to make another 6 videos.

Please excuse the lack of communication skills in my previous comment. I blame the alcohol I should've explained better what I'm criticizing.

And no heathen my comment was not about that the merc can't kill dcows without buffs. It was about how easy/fast he can do it.

^ in fact, the mercs do get very large stat boosts already, and a lot of energy+energy factor. They have large innate stats and a shitload of weapon damage. The difference can easily go unnoticed with something like Firedance. bad skill? no, but it's far from game changing. i've spent a huge amount of hours on mercs for the near 8-9 years I've been playing, and can tell you without a doubt, Ranger could stomp dcows with the endgame level gear.

If you look at the stat bonuses after the buff is applied, dont you notice how very little damage the FD gives? I remember having 30k or so dps, and FB active it was a mere 31k. Woohoo.

And besides all of this, even if it made a huge difference in damage, why would him using the aoe buff be cheating? I mean, he's just using the large number of tools provided for him to get the best results. Thats not a cop out or cheating, thats intelligent build design.

Heathen wrote:And besides all of this, even if it made a huge difference in damage, why would him using the aoe buff be cheating? I mean, he's just using the large number of tools provided for him to get the best results. Thats not a cop out or cheating, thats intelligent build design.

I simply don't know if you can really call it a test-run if you buff your merc first with skills that not every character has available. That way you falsify the results in a positive way. I'd love to see how the merc can do without firedance and familiars but I'd understand if you don't want to make another 6 videos.

I think I said it already, but I'll try to be clearer now.

This thread is called "Rogue Merc Testing". When testing a merc, I expect the merc to do everything single-handedly without the help of a player at all. I want to see if the merc is viable without the help of the player because in some occasions (for example when you respec to a different build for a certain uber) you maybe can't use those skills so the merc is not as strong as he can be when buffed. For example would you max doom on your bombsin just to support your merc? Unlikely. You have other priorities in this case. I mean you basically enhance his abilities. But the videos now only show the maximum you can do on a sorc with this certain build of the sorc, but not for example on a paladin who has different supporting skills. And considering that the main focus on testing were different procs, mostly elemental procs I'd simply love to see how the merc would've done without the player granting a buff to elemental spell damage.

And I already said that "cheating" was maybe a wrong wording of mine. I even said sorry, so why are you still going on about this?

If you look at the stat bonuses after the buff is applied, dont you notice how very little damage the FD gives? I remember having 30k or so dps, and FB active it was a mere 31k. Woohoo.

FD= FB?

Well of course since %spell damage doesn't apply to weapon damage. FD only buffs elemental spell damage.Solfege tested out bows with procs. These procs are affected by it and you can't take a look and see how strong those procs now really are and how much they were buffed. So when testing procs I of course can say you're falsifying the result when you buff those same procs. Especially the clear speed is now enhanced which is what it all comes down to.

None of this is a big deal anyway, and I did come off as a huge cunt, I just think the power of your merc extends to your class' buff ability as well. This video is about potential, not about where the merc rogue stands in power by itself really (though I would still say she can be ridiculously quick to kill things). Mercs on their own arent balanced, because if we just compared the mercs by themselves with no gear, a3 mercs would be the clear winner. it's about what you can do with them to increase the player's own power indirectly, not how powerful they are without you.

HectHeftig wrote:What I was trying to say is he buffed the merc a lot. Ice elementals are okay for testing purposes, since they basically only block damage as a meatshield and add the the defensive aspect of the merc. But they don't add anything to the damage/offensive aspect of the merc, which is what you're testing if I understand you correctly.

I think Heathen summed it up perfectly.

Heathen wrote:It's about what you can do with [Mercs] to increase the player's own power indirectly, not how powerful they are without you.

This is basically what these videos were for: to showcase a Rogue's potential with an underpowered build (in this case, a Melee Sorc) in an effort to see if and how Rogues may be viable alternatives to the more popular A5 Merc. Since of course other classes won't have access to a Sorc's buffs (just as a Sorc won't have access to, say, a Paladin's buffs), they're just meant as templates people might use to build their own Rogues based around their own PC's skillsets.

HectHeftig wrote:I don't know if those 128% more elemental damage really make no difference as you say.

I didn't say it made no difference, only that it didn't make much difference in D-Cows specifically.

HectHeftig wrote:Even on my totemancer I always had to buff myself with burning veil first because it simply added a lot to clearspeed. Despite the fact that I already had about +200% elemental damage without BV and BV added "only" another 140% (Numbers may vary but you get what I mean. If your merc has no additional spell damage the 128% from firedance should make a huge difference considering that the spell damage on my nec made a huge difference as well despite me having +% spell damage from other sources already).

I do get what you mean (and each setup had roughly 200% native SD from gear, on average--except for the Physical setup, which had none), but the difference between a PC and a Merc using the same gear with the same +%SD and procs is Energy. Energy adds a lot of extra damage to spell procs--beyond what +%SD alone can--and since Mercs don't have an Energy stat, they have to rely solely on +%SD to boost proc damage. Which is why a PC will always do more damage than a Merc with the exact same gear.

(If my understanding of the Merc/Energy thing is wrong, disregard this response.)

HectHeftig wrote:I simply don't know if you can really call it a test-run if you buff your merc first with skills that not every character has available. That way you falsify the results in a positive way.

The criteria for these tests was clearly laid out at the beginning of the thread. As well, and as I have stated before, the stat breakdown lists for each setup are posted below each video. And since damage and %DR are listed both with the Firedance/Ice Elementals buffs and without, I don't see how I'm "falsifying results." The numbers are clearly stated for anyone to see.

HectHeftig wrote:I'd love to see how the merc can do without firedance and familiars but I'd understand if you don't want to make another 6 videos.

I could consider doing some unbuffed runs since the Fauzt trials were a bust, as long as Blade Spirits can be used as meatshields (they provide no buffs). I'm just not sure a Rogue could be built to withstand the mob densities solo while still having enough offensive power to kill anything.

HectHeftig wrote:Please excuse the lack of communication skills in my previous comment. I blame the alcohol I should've explained better what I'm criticizing.

There's nothing to excuse b/c I took no offense. You're pointing out what you see as flaws just as I'm attempting to explain why I don't think they are. I don't mind criticism, so there's no need to apologize.